


For Titania, Who Fell In Love With An Ass

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: Buttons and Bows [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Blood in a sexual context, Casual Ableism, Crossdressing, Gory Imagery, Gross-ass shit about Alice, If it's Barnes it must be, M/M, Mental Institutions, Which is frankly an occupational hazard, incarceration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: Soft things next to his skin.





	1. Cross My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of the series of events that occurs in "Boning".  
> "Are We Still Married?" is the name of a song by His Name Is Alive.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

People want to do things for you when you're in this place. Old running buddies- crazies not crazy enough to be inside- amateur sleuths and shrinks- plain old groupies. Arkham's a place of dread, but somehow, everyone wants a piece of it. Of course, Barnes has heard about this kind of shit for years, but it never seemed worthy of a serious crack-down. Whatever the inmates were being given from the outside, it was bound to be less serious than what they were smuggling in at Black Gate. Part of him never fully believed it, anyway- about the thrill-seekers and fans. It was just too much, even for Gotham. Another part of him, one that barely had a voice, quietly insisted that it was a bad enough place to end up, even if you were sick and belonged there, so let the crazies have their trinkets.  
Maybe he knew something, then.  
Looking like a self-satisfied cat, Tetch sidles up to him in the day room. Before he can open his mouth, Barnes tells him to walk away. Tetch frowns a little, then smiles again.  
“But I have something for you.”  
“I don't want it,” Barnes mutters.  
“Perhaps the balm for your distress is a most singular dress.”  
It's not on the in-take forms. Barnes will be damned if he talks about it with the shrink. Unless someone's been to his house, done a thorough search, no one knows. And if they swept his place- looking for God knows what, because all of the evidence has been, is, and will always be in Barnes' veins- how does Tetch know?  
At the end of the day, though, Barnes doesn't really care that much. He clamps his hand around Tetch's neck. It takes three guards to pull him off. Tetch is totally still until one of the guards is on him, checking him for injuries. Like the last time, he bites. This time, he gets an elbow to the face in return.  
“We really must find another way to rendezvous,” Tetch murmurs, touching his face and wincing, when they're in isolation, “It's far too easily that I bruise.”  
“This isn't for recreation,” Barnes says.  
“It could be,” Tetch says. His face is a collage of old and new bruises, the circles under his eyes fitting in seamlessly. “I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.”  
“You'd better find a way, because it's not happening again.”  
“If I recall correctly, it happened more than once during our last interlude. I also recall that it was mutually beneficial. That's how I think our relationship should be- mutually beneficial.”  
“What, are you trying to blackmail me, now?”  
“Blackmail?” he looks shocked at the thought.  
Maybe Barnes had it wrong. He frowns. “What the fuck was that about a dress?”  
“Oh,” Tetch brightens, “My dear sister was known to wear one of an exquisite shade of blue- so like your eyes in hue- and I could very easily have one brought in made to your proportions.”  
“You want me to wear a dress for you.”  
“You know that I would make it worth your while.”  
Barnes needs to think. “Shut up,” he says. “Please,” he adds, which does actually shut Tetch up.  
Barnes thinks. Not about what it's all for, and what game Tetch is trying to play, and how this is going to end badly in a messy way for both of them. But about the last time they were in this room, and what they did. They'd been left alone all night, and they hadn't slept. It hasn't been like that with someone since Barnes was young. Your blood sizzles in your veins. Alice was young. If you're not out of your mind when you come into Arkham, you'll get there soon enough. He's thinking about how Tetch felt under him; how it felt to make him come- like punishing them all. How, after a while, he stopped saying Alice's name.  
“Not a dress,” Barnes says finally.  
“No?”  
“Get me lingerie.”  
“She didn't wear lingerie,” he says quietly.  
“She wore underwear, didn't she?”  
Tetch has the nerve to blush. “Yes. It was simple, though; fit for a young lady.”  
Well, that's no fun. Barnes sighs. May Alice forgive him. But she can't forgive- or remain angry, for that matter- because she's dead. Fuck it. “What did you want to see her in?”  
“I- I can't-”  
“Then I can't help you.”  
“Red,” he says, barely audibly.  
“Red what?”  
“One of those...” he runs his hand over his chest helplessly, “Like a corset, but different.”  
“Over-bust.”  
“I suppose.”  
“I'm going to give you a name, and you're going to tell whoever you have on the outside to go to her, and have her make whatever it is you're thinking about.”  
Tetch shakes his head.  
“You either get everything you want, or you get nothing at all, Tetch.” God help him, he almost feels like he's in the interrogation room again. There was no more natural pleasure than making someone give it up. Not because you hurt them— but because they wanted to. They wanted it so badly. “Most people don't consider that a puzzler.”  
Tetch looks at him, eyes liquid. “You'd really do that? For me?”  
Jesus wept. “Yeah. For you. Now, what are you going to do for me?”  
“You do want me, then?”  
You have to give something to get something. That was what it was like in the interrogation room. “Yeah. I do.”  
He doesn't give Tetch a chance to get smug. He kisses him, moves him to the bed. Takes off his clothes. Puts a finger up his ass, and blows him. Spits his come into his mouth. Kisses him and rubs against Tetch until he comes in his pants.  
They don't sleep that night, either.


	2. Are We Still Married?

It is, of course, far more difficult than he imagined. It's simple enough relaying Nathaniel's instructions-- but is the message received? He has to take, when all is said and done, three different phone calls with his “lawyer”. The last one sees him screaming, “Why would it be in centimeters, you ninny?” He doesn't kick up a fuss when the guard puts a needle in his neck. It probably comes down to animus more than actual fear of Jervis' temper- he's beginning to think that the staff has a problem with him- but he's so agitated that the little envelope of darkness that seals up around him is welcome.  
He doesn't like to be restless like this. When you don't know what to do with yourself, things happen to you. Though, after a time, even that begins to appeal. Unpleasantness is certainly a break in the monotony.  
It's like part of him is asleep. He can see her, he knows that she's there, but he can't feel her. He knows without asking that he's not yet allowed to touch her again. Behind Nathaniel's warning looks,he sees her, like a carnival attraction- the woman inside of the block of ice. It'll require something very warm, indeed, to make her free. At night, he hears Nathaniel screaming. He'd stopped it for a while, but he's begun again. What Jervis feels about this, he cannot say, but it's a low, creeping thing. Wrapping around him, keeping him warm at night.  
After more than a month of very hard and lonely days and nights, Jervis finally gets the call he's been waiting for. It's like he's been shocked out of sleep. He'd begun to drift, in fact, in a kind of waking dream; needled by longing so painful that it began to numb him, body and soul.  
In addition to money, the orderly wants lavish reassurances that it isn't drugs.  
“Why, I have all the drugs I could possibly want,” Jervis laughs, putting out his hands, “What would be the purpose of bringing in more? We're hardly going to run out.”  
“Yeah, okay- but, say, it's not some kind of weapon, is it?”  
“The furthest thing from it. Nor is it inflammatory reading material, risqué photos, falsified credentials, alcohol, or cigarettes.” Naming everything it isn't keeps him from having to tell what it is. As he does, his hand taps out a beat against his leg. “It's absolutely harmless. Now, after you receive the package from my associate, you'll just leave it in my friend's room...”  
His friend is a young lady of an uninquiring nature. In exchange for her role as intermediary, he acted as a look-out when she wanted to take office supplies from the nurse's station. He watched her shove notepads into her blouse like they were gold bricks. It's amazing how little it takes to make some people happy. She'll only hand over his package after he's supplied some hard candies and a magazine. He has to put them on a table, and turn his back before she'll take them.  
It's then a matter of getting it into Nathaniel's room. At shift changes, the corridors are almost empty. It's apparently a matter of staffing. There have been too many unpleasant incidents since the reopening to attract the number of employees needed. It's sad, really. No one cares about the infirm. Jervis ducks into Nathaniel's room, slides the package under his bed, close enough to the wall that it can't be seen.  
In the day room, he comes close to Nathaniel, and whispers, “Underneath your bed, you'll find what it is I've had in mind.” Nothing more.  
The next morning, he finds himself underneath Nathaniel on a table, Nathaniel's hands again at his throat. Jervis can't stop laughing. He's missed this so much. He kicks a guard between the legs, and gets slapped in the mouth. To his immense, his pleasure beyond measure, Nathaniel hits the man back for Jervis. One of the more excitable patients jumps into the fray, flailing at all present, which is as good as an invitation to those who stand watching, desperate for the distraction of violence. An entire corner of the dayroom clings together in a knot of blows given and received; the rest crying out in distress, or delight, or the simple feeling of being alive. Someone blows a whistle, and shouts, “Lock-down!” This means that he and Nathaniel will be in isolation for at least twenty-four hours. This is just too, too much.  
By the time they reach their destination, he's calmed down a little bit. That silky, venomously loose feeling crowds into his limbs, and he lets go. He's heavy, almost sleepy, when he sits down on the bed. “Let me see it,” he whispers, “You are wearing it, aren't you?”  
“Yeah. I'm wearing it.”  
“Let me see.”  
“You want this over quickly, or do you want to have something to think about, the next time you're alone on one of those cold, dark nights?”  
“Oh,” he gasps, and covers his mouth.  
“Come over here.”  
Jervis stands, and goes to Nathaniel. With a little shake, Nathaniel grabs him; holds him, strong hands on his arms. He presses his face against Jervis' neck, where his hands were a few moments ago. The satin footsteps of his breath. He bites with his teeth the places where his fingers bit before. Electric, shocking pain. Jervis tips his head back, tries to keep his breathing even. He reaches down between them and undoes a button of Nathaniel's shirt, twists his wrist and puts his hand over Nathaniel's heart.  
“Alice,” he whispers.  
“Guilty,” says Nathaniel, like it's Marco Polo. His voice is hoarse from screaming.  
“Kiss me,” says Jervis, “Please.”  
No one likes being cold when they could be warm. Nathaniel kisses him- not without sweetness. Every tissue of his body is suffused with Alice, and it's only a thin layer of skin that separates her from Jervis. He can taste her. Of course he can. If Nathaniel's skin is soft, and his body feels good against Jervis, it's because of her. Everything happens because of her. Even in the ground, it's her the earth revolves around.  
He waits patiently as Nathaniel takes off his clothes, leaving Jervis exposed to the cool air of their little bower. Nathaniel's hands on his skin are a brand. Maybe this is how Nathaniel marks him as being among the guilty.  
“Please,” Jervis says. He's chilled, and he aches, and he's beginning to fear that he'll never get what he's been waiting for. It makes him pout. In a second, he'll begin wringing his hands. He was never like this before. It used to be so easy.  
Nathaniel unbuttons the second button. The third. A flash of red, like the pillow of a sacred heart. Jervis feels his own heart skip a beat. Then, the full revelation. It's shocking. It's the red of flayed flesh, as though Nathaniel had been stripped of skin from the breast, down. Taking in a deep breath, Jervis reaches out. He touches. He won't be surprised if his fingers come away wet.  
The fabric is luxuriously soft, almost like velvet, but without its animal furriness. Beneath the fabric are strips of- metal, Jervis supposes. They're so fine, though; they permit Nathaniel to breathe. Nathaniel actually seems to be having an easier time breathing than Jervis. His posture's usually correct, but in this garment, it's military. What would it have done for Alice, who so often slumped like a sullen child? How would she have looked, her shoulders pushed back, her small breasts pushed up, her neck rising like a plume of smoke above?  
Like a queen. A queen in red.  
Jervis could weep.  
Instead, he tugs at Nathaniel's pants. There was more. He must see.  
“Get on your knees,” Nathaniel says. What can Jervis do but comply.  
Then, Nathaniel lets him see. Red panties of shineless silk, like a pool of blood dulling as it dries. Nathaniel doesn't take them off, but merely pushes them to the side. Red on red.  
Jervis sucks until his lips feel as though they might split again; his jaw, sore unto locking. But he can't stop. Somehow, he learned to enjoy this. It's as though he fell into a trance, and found himself compelled. Conditioned bliss, for the hypnotist.  
Nathaniel tells him to stop. He can't imagine why, but he does what he's told. He's told to lie down, and he does. Nathaniel covers his body with his own, heavy and hot and totally inescapable. He kisses Jervis, touches him in ways Jervis doesn't always like. This is desire, though: inevitably, you won't like what someone else wants from you. But sometimes, you have to let them have it. You have to suffer for love.  
Nathaniel's inside of him. It's agonizing, but it's so thrilling. Jervis couldn't be closer to her. It's her blood next to his. He often bleeds. The sight of his own blood on the sheets is satisfying, somehow.  
Nathaniel fucks him to completion, the red panties pulled down but still on.  
Then, he's kissed, caressed with such interest that it seems impossible. As though satisfying himself just makes Nathaniel want him more. How peculiar. How upside-down. The pain lingers, but it's now wrapped up in all of the other things Jervis is feeling. Stuffed into a silk bag, and thrown into a deep grave. Buried beneath the stirring in his blood. If Nathaniel feels the need to punish him on Alice's behalf, then surely, his queen is also capable of mercy. This is her living again through him. She's come to her senses. She forgives, she forgives.  
With each beat of the inhabited heart, Jervis knows.  
She loves him.


End file.
